In a preview of the latest report on the "State of the Nation's Housing," which will be released next Monday, the director of Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies told housing writers last week that "the old social contract" that promises a home for anyone who has a job "no loner exists."

"Getting a job is no longer enough," Nicolas Retsinas said at the National Association of Real Estate Editors' annual journalism conference in New York.

"If you are a minimum wage worker with a full-time a job, have health insurance which covers everything and a car that never breaks down, there's not a single jurisdiction in the United States where you can afford a two-bedroom apartment."

In one-third of the nation's 3,900 jurisdictions, the former FHA Commissioner during the Clinton Administration added, a family needs two full-time minimum wage earners to afford a two-bedroom apartment.

And it's only going to get worse unless lawmakers in Washington unlock their pocketbooks and begin approving programs that will produce new housing units, according to John McIlwain, the senior resident fellow for housing at the Urban Land Institute.

While the shortfall of what he called "workforce housing" is "one of the top one or two issues" for most big city mayors, even more so than homeland security, it is "not an issue at the federal level," said McIlwain, who is responsible for leading ULI's research efforts into promoting affordable housing solutions.

He said the issue will eventually rise to the fore in Washington, but if lawmakers talk about housing without also talking about money, they will be going in the wrong direction.

"Money is the answer," said the former senior director of Fannie Mae's American Communities Fund, a venture fund that invests in hard to finance affordable housing projects.

"That's an over-simplification, but money is still the answer."

Martin Edwards, president of the National Association of Realtors, agreed that lawmakers must elevate housing to a national priority. But he also faulted the Clinton and Bush regimes for not doing more to preserve existing housing stock.

In the last two years, the Memphis realty broker said, the number of unsubsidized units affordable by very-low income households has shrunk by 900,000 units. And on top of that, he added, HUD has torn down 33,000 public housing units while putting up just 7,400 new ones.

"Every week, housing stock is taken down. That's got to stop," he said.

"Retention of existing houses is one of our most important issues. We pay too much attention on new production and not enough on restoring existing properties. That's backwards; it ought to be the other way around."

As with previous editions, the Joint Center's annual report will document a continued era of housing prosperity for most Americans. "Housing has been relatively immune from the recession," Retsinas comments. "It's as if someone forgot to tell housing about the downturn."

The report also will paint a bullish future for a sector that should continue to benefit from increased household formations. But for the first time, it will show that a number of working families have missed the housing boat. "Prosperity hasn't solved the affordability problem," Retsinas said, adding that, "A rising tide does not lift all boats. Not everybody has a boat, and some people with boats don't have any oars."

Retsinas, who also teaches at the Harvard Design School and the Kennedy School of Government, said the image most people have of poor families is one of people who don't work and live in ramshackle dwellings. But that's no longer the case, he told the housing writers.

Two-thirds of the people in the lowest income "quintile," those earning an average of $10,500 a year, are white, not minorities or immigrants, he reported. And half are home owners, including many elderly owners who have seen their equity erode.

He also pointed out that one out every eight families in the lowest quintile have adult male children still living at home and one out of every 12 have adult female children still at home.

Altogether, he said, there are 2.6 million households nationwide with adult children. "It may be love," Retsinas remarked. "But as a parent, I doubt it."

Published: June 19, 2002

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When Lew Sichelman first started writing about housing in 1969, he was the youngest real estate writer in the country. Now, 37 years later, he's one of the oldest -- and most decorated. He has been rated the top housing columnist in the country by the National Association of Realtors as well as by his peers in the National Association of Real Estate Editors. Indeed, NAREE has recognized his work on numerous occasions. One year - due to his advancing age, he can't recall which one - he earned top honors in the annual NAREE Journalism Contest in three out of the four major writing categories. It was the first time one writer has won so many NAREE awards in a single year. Known for his ability to make even the most difficult topics understandable, Sichelman also has been honored by the National Association of Home Builders and the Mortgage Bankers Association. He began providing in-depth coverage of and consumer-oriented information about housing and housing finance at the Washington Daily News, where he was real estate editor. He held that same position for nine more years at the Washington Star, which purchased the News in 1972. The Star, a so-called "writer's newspaper" which also had the misfortune of being an evening paper, was put out of its misery in 1981, and Sichelman, who had begun self-syndicating his column in 1978, decided to become a full-time columnist. Today, his column, "The Housing Scene," is distributed by United Media to newspapers throughout the country. He also is on the staff of National Mortgage News, an independent newspaper which is considered the bible of the mortgage business. And he writes for numerous other publications, including MarketWatch.com, where he answers readers questions once a week, Sports Illustrated (don't ask), RealtyTimes.com, BigBuilder and others. Sichelman is married, the father of five and grandfather of eleven.